On Tuesday, head coach Mark Pope revealed that there will likely be no summer trip for the 2026-27 Wildcats.

“We’re probably a lean towards not going right now,” Pope told Darrell Bird of Cats Pause.

The NCAA recently adopted a proposal that will allow schools to take summer tours every year after the rules previously limited schools to one trip every four years. Even if it ended up being somewhere close by, this would’ve been a great experience for the Cats to get some exhibition games in, especially with the roster overhaul they’re going through.

Oh well. The good news is UK will still have plenty of summer practices to develop and build chemistry.

A woman from Maryland detained by ICE last year told News4 conditions are challenging inside the detention center where she’s been held since August.

Maryland does not have ICE detention centers, so detained immigrants are sent to detention centers in other states. That includes Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana, which has faced complaints in the past about detainee care and facility conditions.

“Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

“I miss my family,” Damaris Gomez-Laurens said from inside Richwood. “They treat us like a, like a criminal. I feel like that. I feel like that.”

Gomez-Laurens called her family one day when the News4 I-Team visited them in Maryland. The signal was unstable, going in and out. Those detained have to pay for the calls. This one cost just over $3.

The I-Team’s asked Gomez-Laurens what it has been like being away from her husband and two sons.

“It’s really hard,” she said. “We’ve never been separated. And I have more than seven months without them.”

Gomez-Laurens lived a full life in Prince George’s County for more than 20 years. Pictures provided by the family tell the story of a mom surrounded by her husband, their boys and extended relatives.

“Without her, these past holidays were tough, very difficult – not having her and thinking what she was going through by herself too,” said her niece Heisy Garcia. “She’s the key part of our family. She keep us together too.”

Garcia said her aunt was detained during her annual ICE probation check-in in Baltimore. She had a work permit and operated an electrical business with her husband, Garcia said. She has no criminal record and has been trying to become a legal citizen since 2014, according to Garcia.

The detention has cost her family both emotionally and financially.

“Just her own attorney that she files for emergency stays, for her appeal to reopen her immigration case, you’re talking about from $5,000 to $6,000,” Garcia said. “Now, going through consultations from attorney to attorney, it’s $500 at each consultation. And then having a different attorney in another state, that’s another $6,000.”

Visiting is hard because the facility is almost 1,000 miles away. The family told News4 their trip to Richwood earlier this year was tough for other reasons too.

“After months of not seeing her, so, we hugged her and one of the officers start yelling ‘Stop! Stop! You can only hug her for 10 seconds!’” Garcia said. “I was like, ‘10 seconds? They told us three minutes.’”

‘Worst of the worst’

The family told us they visited during the snowstorm that hit in January, leading to problems at the facility.

“It seems like the pipe burst and they were without water for 48 hours,” said Garcia.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the I-Team in a statement:“Due to the freezing temperatures in January 2026, there was an issue with the water supply for a short period of time and, like always, ICE was prepared for this contingency. Bottled water was immediately issued, and portable water tanks were introduced to enable proper cycling of toilets. Detainees were NOT made to wait 48 hours for water and were given access to water bottles immediately.”

During the video phone call, Gomez-Laurens discussed other challenges. “The bathroom is really bad conditions. They always wet, because they are always leaking. Leaking, leaking. Always is wet,” she said.

“Richwood, I think, is the worst of the worst,” said Vincent Rivas Flores, an immigration attorney with Amica Center for Immigrant Rights.

He told the I-Team he’s heard complaints about cleanliness and other issues from clients from Maryland who also are detained at Richwood.

“For months, my clients have told me that there has been mold problems in the bathrooms and the toilets and the showers,” he said.

According to a 2023 DHS office of inspector general report, inspectors found health and safety violations, including poor housing conditions and unclean showers. DHS said it addressed these issues with renovations.

“So much can change if Richwood actually listened to the complaints. These complaints are not new,” said Rivas Flores.

The OIG report also noted that Richwood restricted detainees’ access to legal visitation and calls without providing justification.

ICE said it complies with all standards and logs whether any restrictions have to be made.

“Sometimes I will not be able to talk to my clients for several days, unless they call me. And if they’re calling me, they have to use their own account. They have to use their money in order to make that phone call, and it’s not a private call,” said Rivas Flores.

The I-Team asked him what he thinks Richwood can do to improve things.

“The number one thing that they can do is fix the food,” he said. “That’s probably the first thing that can do, and it almost certainly would be the easiest.”

Gomez-Laurens also talked about the food.

“The food is not really good. Since I came in I have, I don’t have any fruit, real fruit,” she said. “We stay one week with bologna sandwich. One bologna, two piece of bread, and cookie or chips for a week, lunch and dinner.”

DHS responded via statement, telling the I-Team: “All detainees are provided with 3 meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, and toiletries, and have access to phones to communicate with their family members and lawyers. Certified dieticians evaluate meals. It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody. This includes medical, dental, and mental health services as available, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care. This is the best healthcare than many aliens have received in their entire lives.”

Gomez-Laurens spoke to the I-Team from the room where she sleeps. The I-Team asked how many people often share the room.

“100. Now it’s 93, I think. Sometimes we have around 108,” said Gomez-Laurens.

Gomez-Laurens told News4 she ended up at Richwood after flying from Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in Maryland to Alexandria International Airport in Louisiana. While we don’t know how many others from Maryland are there, according to data collected from the ICE Flights Monitor project almost 60% of all ICE flights from Maryland since January 2025 were bound for Alexandria. That’s 91 flights through April of this year.

A local father shot by ICE officers during a Christmas Eve arrest in Glen Burnie is now pleading guilty to a federal charge and at risk of deportation.

‘Everything is coming down’

While Gomez-Lauren’s case is still going through the court system, her husband, Kevin Gomez, worries about the impact her absence is having, especially on their two young sons.

“Sometimes they demonstrate rebelliousness or they don’t want to do the things they usually did before,” he told our Telemundo 44 partners in Spanish.

He’s concerned about what happens next, including possible deportation.

“After so many years of living in this country, having many things built together, it’s like everything is coming down, and she has 20 years in this country, practically a life made. You have to return to a country that maybe you don’t know,” said Gomez.

Meanwhile, Gomez-Laurens’ family said she’s earned a nickname among the women in detention. They call her “Pastor.” She holds Bible studies and spends money sent by her family on higher-quality food from the commissary to feed the women during the holidays.

She said faith and hope are what sustains her.

“I’m preaching in this place. I know God has hope and that I really have hope on God,” she said. “I’m trusting him, and his justice. He will make justice. I know.”

The DHS spokesperson told the I-Team in a written statement: “Nearly every single day, DHS responds to media questions on FALSE allegations about ICE detention facilities. Any allegations of inhumane conditions are false. […] ICE has higher detention standards than most US prisons that hold actual US citizens.”

Richwood is a private facility. News4 also reached out to the company that runs Richwood for ICE, LaSalle Corrections, but has not heard back.

Maryland will no longer automatically charge some juveniles as adults for several serious crimes.

Governor Wes Moore signed the Youth Charging Reform Act into law on Tuesday morning. 

Supporters praised it as giving young offenders a second chance, but opponents—including many prosecutors—said it gives young offenders a free pass. 

The impact of reform 

Juvenile crime has alarmed many across Maryland. Video WJZ Investigates obtained earlier this month shows a convenience store robbery in Baltimore, with suspects as young as 14. 

But advocates for charging reform said the state treats young offenders too harshly and locks many of them up without judicial discretion. 

They have been fighting for more than a decade to stop automatic adult charges for certain crimes—including for many handgun offenses and serious assaults. 

They finally won a victory with the governor signing the Youth Charging Reform Act.

“Maryland was automatically charging kids as young as 14 as adults for cases that almost always—almost always in the super majority of cases—ended back into the juvenile court anyway but only months after being locked up in jail and many times in solitary confinement,” said Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore City Democrat. “Nearly a semester of high school is gone. For you and I, that might not seem like a long time, but for 14-year-old or a 15-year-old, that is a lifetime.”

Ferguson stressed a statistic long cited by advocates for youth charging reform. 

“Here in Maryland, we charge more children as adults than in every other state other than Alabama,” Ferguson said. “This bill will change that. It keeps cases in the right court from the start, which actually and by the data makes us safer and is better for those young people.”

House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk, a Democrat representing Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties, echoed Ferguson’s comments at the signing ceremony. 

Peña-Melnyk said it shows lawmakers’ “commitment to giving people a better life” and noted her own experiences as a prosecutor and a public defender. 

“You need to give people an opportunity,” Peña-Melnyk said. “You need to give them second chances.”

Certain severe crimes including rape and murder still mandate adult charges. 

The new law also keeps juveniles out of adult prisons, away from the “sight and sound” of adult offenders, with rare exceptions.

What the numbers show

State data revealed in 2025 that 303 Maryland youth were charged as adults for gun crimes. More than 200 were charged as adults with first-degree assault.

Only 58 of those weapons charges stayed in adult court, along with only 38 of the first-degree assault charges.

The fiscal impact report on the bill also showed a drastic change for state’s attorneys’ offices across Maryland. 

Baltimore City will have to hire as many as 16 new employees, including 11 assistant state’s attorneys, to review the cases involving juveniles.

You can read the fiscal impact report here.

The law is also expected to address racial disparities, with a state analysis showing 77% of youth charged as adults in Maryland in 2025 are Black.      

What prosecutors are saying 

Many top prosecutors, including Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates, believe the charging reform is misguided. 

Bates, in his role as head of the state’s attorney’s association, told WJZ, “…The General Assembly chooses to ignore the data once again and pass legislation that will allow youth with guns who commit robberies and violent assaults to be given a free pass time after time when they are caught illegally carrying or using a firearm.”

Bates said prosecutors wanted the General Assembly to delay implementation of the reforms by three years to allow the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services to develop new programming to assist young offenders. 

“Instead, our request was ignored, and the members of the General Assembly vilified us for it,” Baltimore City’s top prosecutor wrote. 

Howard County State’s Attorney Rich Gibson cited the case of 19-year-old Emmetson Zeah who killed a 15- and a 16-year-old outside the Mall In Columbia

Gibson said Zeah was given multiple second chances before being sentenced to life without parole last week. 

“Our broader system failed him long before we arrived at this moment,” Gibson said. In the span of two years, this defendant had six separate contacts with the justice system. The majority occurred within the juvenile justice system, and yet none of those interventions altered the trajectory that he was on—nor did they accurately recognize the escalating warning signs that ultimately led us to where we are today.” 

Gibson also told reporters, “Let me be clear, prosecutors across the state have never opposed appropriate juvenile diversion or rehabilitative efforts. We support keeping more youthful offenders in the juvenile system, but only once that system is equipped with the resources, the staffing, the accountability measures, and the evidence-based programming necessary to address specific factors that drive that juvenile behavior.”

Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger denounced the reform law last week at a debate hosted by WJZ and The Banner. 

“I believe we should leave the laws the way they are in Maryland. Juveniles who commit violent crimes can be held accountable as adults,” Shellenberger said. “…We need to put more money into the juvenile justice system so that when they commit their first breaking-and-entering at the age of 14 or 15, we can get them the kind of help they and their family need, so that I don’t have to put them in jail for life when they’ve killed somebody at the age of 17.”

Public defender says reform “overdue”

“For more than a decade, Maryland has automatically routed children into adult criminal court based solely on the charge filed at arrest, without considering the child’s history, circumstances, or capacity for growth,” said Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue. “Maryland does this for 33 separate offenses, which is more than any state in the country except Alabama. Yet 85 percent of those cases are ultimately dismissed or sent back to juvenile court anyway, often only after the children spend months in adult facilities without school, services, or meaningful family contact.”

While she praised the signing of the reform legislation, Dartigue noted there are still 26 offenses where juveniles are automatically charged as adults and called for further reforms. 

“The evidence is clear: automatic adult prosecution does not make communities safer,” Dartigue said. “It makes children more likely to reoffend, families less stable, and communities fractured at public expense. Every one of those 26 pathways is a choice Maryland is making with full knowledge of what that choice costs. It is a system we must change.”